Competition

10 feature films and 11 short films on the many forms of liberation — from the past, the present, and the future.

With 13 Italian premieres, the Competition reflects a wide range of concerns and perspectives, bringing together distant memories and contemporary visions, through voices from different countries and archives of diverse nature.

Feature-length

Holofiction

Holofiction

Michal Kosakowski

Holofiction is a feature length experimental film that explores the visual representation of the Holocaust, inviting audiences to reflect on the ethics and responsibility of cinematic storytelling.

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office

Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens

An essay film about the mysteries of consciousness and communication channeled through neurophysiologist and “psychonaut” John C. Lilly, a daring experimenter with dolphins and psychedelics.

La photo retrouvée

La photo retrouvée

Pierre Primetens

With this film, the director decided to tell the complex story of his life by borrowing the memories of others.

Museo de la noche

Museo de la noche

Fermín Eloy Acosta

Moving between archives and testimonies, this film essay explores the photographic and film materials made by Argentine artist Leandro Katz between 1970 and 1976 in New York City.

Partition

Partition

Diana Allan

Recovering the Palestinian presence through stories, voices and songs, Partition combines archival footage of the British occupation of Palestine with audio recordings of refugees in Lebanon.

Seafarers

Seafarers

Milja Viita

Skönärit is a collage film that, through the tragic true-life story of a sailor, portrays the life of seafarers at the mercy of the natural elements, while also touching on themes such as colonialism and globalization.

Special Operation

Special Operation

Oleksiy Radynski

Each shot of this film is a piece of evidence of a Russian war crime in Ukraine which was documented in real time by the surveillance cameras.

The Sense of Violence

The Sense of Violence

Mooyoung Kim

The film traces the evolution of South Korean cinema and politics since the 1950s, examining their intersection within the historical context of "anti-communist art" during the Park Chung-hee regime in the '60s and '70s.

The Big Chief

The Big Chief

Tomasz Wolski

The Big Chief is a spy film that uses archival footage to tell the story of an unknown but fascinating historical figure against the backdrop of the tumultuous historical events of 20th-century Europe.

Videoheaven

Videoheaven

Alex Ross Perry

Videoheaven explores the impact that video rentals have had on film culture through the use of hundreds of sources (from TV commercials to blockbuster films).

Short and medium-length

09/05/1982

09/05/1982

Jorge Caballero, Camilo Restrepo

A deteriorated film, shot in 1982 in a Latin American country, presents a succession of everyday images, among which a few stand out that testify to the violent events that took place on May 9 of that year.

’86-’96

’86-’96

Lavinia Xausa

Under the surface of memories and everyday moments, fragments of another history creep in, traces of a fragile world shaped by man.

Autorretrato a los 13

Autorretrato a los 13

Oscar X. Illingworth

Partly the video diary of a 13-year-old boy, partly a mother’s recordings of her news broadcasts, this is a fully original snapshot of Ecuadorian identity.

Dizzy Cavalry

Dizzy Cavalry

Patrick Doyon

The film, which focuses on an old 8mm western film, shows the cavalry charge.

HOW TO WRITE, an AI Guide in Four Steps

HOW TO WRITE, an AI Guide in Four Steps

Nicola Eddy

A vintage tutorial, narrated by an AI, guides creators in combining fragments of old narratives, revealing that creation is construction, not invention.

In Retrospect

In Retrospect

Mila Zhluktenko, Daniel Asadi Faezi

Immigrant workers built a shopping mall for the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 2016 that same building became the tragic scene of a racially motivated shooting.

Le prime volte

Le prime volte

Giulia Cosentino, Perla Sardella

Two imagined and never sent letters recount, each from their own point of view, two womenʼs shared youth spent at a girlsʼ boarding school.

Locas del ático

Locas del ático

Tamara García Iglesias

The film explores early depictions of mad women on screen (depicted as silent, excessive, twisted, ridiculous) focusing on silent films of the 1920s and 1930s.

Mother’s Letter

Mother’s Letter

Sylvia Schedelbauer

Sylvia Schedelbauer discovers the rebellious past of her mother as a young woman in conservative postwar Japan who eventually emigrates to Germany. This film can be considered as an act of intergenerational memory-making.

Postscript

Postscript

Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko

The drowned footage recovered from the Karaj Dam in Iran – where French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse crashed in 1970 – resurfaces.

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

Theo Panagopoulos

This tender essay film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and land.